Necessary Force
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Mark is not always a chip off the old Milt.


Disclaimer: The characters are not my property, nor do I profit from their use. Band-aid, Styrofoam, and Jell-O are the trademarks of Johnson & Johnson, Dow Chemical, and Kraft Foods, respectively, for their brands of adhesive bandages, polystyrene foam, and gelatin dessert.

Rated: PG

Author's notes: Many thanks to Cheri for beta-input. We like Frank. We like him a lot.

Necessary Force

By L. M. Lewis

Frank Harper found the knot of police officers outside the ER treatment area and buttonholed Detective Wilkes, pulling him aside. "What the hell happened?"

"Well," Wilkes shrugged, "you're not gonna believe this, but it looks like a random mugging. The dead guys had I.D.; I like perps who carry I.D. They both had sheets long enough to wallpaper their cells, but all minor stuff. Guess they'd moved up to armed robbery, bad career choice." Wilkes smiled narrowly, "Hardcastle took 'em both out. Two shots, two kills. That guy is a piece of work," he added, admiringly.

"He's okay?"

"Yeah, scraped up a little. The doc's already released him. Looks like the other guy forgot to duck, though."

"McCormick? He was shot?"

"Nah, took a hit to the head. It was a pipe. Doc said they're getting a cat scan, but he's awake." Frank pushed past him, shaking his head as he went. Wilkes shouted after him, "Lemme know when he can give a statement, will ya?"

Inside the treatment area he flashed his badge and was pointed toward a curtained unit in the back. Hardcastle was there, looking the worse for wear with a gauze bandage wound around his left hand and a band-aid on his nose, but on his feet and in his own clothes, not a hospital gown. He was deep in conference with one of the doctors.

"— there's either just a concussion, or possibly a subdural; that's an area of bleeding between the brain and the skull. The cat scan will tell us if there's a skull fracture, too, but that's really not as important as what's going on inside."

Hardcastle nodded, looking pretty calm, all things considered, Frank thought. He must've had a chance to talk to the kid before they wheeled him off to get the scan.

"So it'll be a little while before we have him back here, and have the results. You might want to have a seat in the family room and I'll send someone for you when he's returned."

"Milt?" Frank stepped up as the doctor departed. "You look like you could use some coffee. They have a room back here for the cops and EMTs."

"Oh, hi, Frank," he started to rub his unbandaged hand over his face, then winced when it touched his nose. "Yeah, coffee sounds good." Frank thought he sounded more than tired. _Old. My God, I've never thought of Milt as old._ He steered him out of the unit and in the direction of the workroom. Hardcastle stopped, "Wait, I gotta tell the nurse where we'll be."

Frank watched as Hardcastle wandered off to find the right one. He was walking with a slight limp, too. _Yeah, but you should see the other guys,_ the thought came unbidden. Then the man was back at his side. "You okay?" he asked.

"Been better," there was a ghost of a smile, "but it could've been worse." He followed Frank into the room and sat down heavily on the vinyl-covered couch against one wall.

Frank took two styrofoam cups off the stack and poured from the coffeemaker, thinking this might be one of those times when a beer would be more effective. He handed one cup to Hardcastle, put his own on the table, and pulled up a chair.

"Talk, Milt."

"I already gave a statement to that kid, Wilkes."

"Not a statement, _talk_. Tell me what happened."

Hardcastle locked eyes with Frank and looked momentarily defiant. Then he broke away, looking past him as if at some undefined moment from earlier that evening. "Yeah, well, we'd parked the Coyote over on 43rd, under a streetlight--"

"What were you doing over there, this time of night?"

"Because that's where we'd heard the witness lived. You know, the guy in the Williams case who disappeared before the trial. And we'd heard he'd turned up again, but looking like somebody'd beat up on him pretty bad. And while we were walking toward the address we'd been given, McCormick kept turning around, looking back at the car, and I guess I turned, too, to tell him to stop worrying so much; must've, because I didn't see the guy until I turned back and he whacked me a good one, right in the nose."

Hardcastle paused, as if trying to remember the sequence of events. Frank waited patiently.

"There were two of 'em, one with a gun, the other waving a two-foot piece of pipe around; I think that's what he'd used to get my attention."

Frank nodded.

"By the time I figured out what had hit me, McCormick had thrown himself against the other guy, the one with the gun. They were down on the ground. I didn't see too much of what was going on there because I had my hands full with the pipe guy. A pipe that long isn't too much use in a clutch. I finally clocked him good, and he dropped it.

"Then . . . Mark had the gun. He was holding it on the second guy. The pipe guy was still down. McCormick turned his head to look at me. The guy who'd had the gun, he was up on his feet. The pipe must have rolled right toward him, and he had it in his hand. I said . . . something. I don't remember. Mark turned back; he was facing him when the guy swung on him." Hardcastle had his hand up to his forehead, bracing himself. His eyes were closed.

"Mark didn't fire?" Frank prodded gently.

Hardcastle shook his head. "No, I did." He lifted his face slowly and looked at Frank. "I'd finally gotten at my gun; God I was slow. Mark was down on the ground, out cold. There was a lot of blood. The guy was raising the pipe to swing it again. I shot him."

Frank nodded again. This was pretty much what he had figured. He knew Hardcastle wouldn't have hesitated, just as surely as he suspected Mark had.

"And then I shot the other guy."

Frank waited a moment for further explanation. Hardcastle added nothing. Frank finally said, "He was on his feet, he was close to where Mark had dropped the gun."

After a pause, Hardcastle answered, "Yes . . . but I'm not sure I was thinking that clearly about it at the time."

The two friends sat there for a few minutes. Frank thought of a half-dozen platitudes that he had the decency not to insult the judge with.

"You know, Frank, last year, when that plane went down, when we were up in Oregon?"

"Yeah."

"Those crazies, they killed those hunters and ran us ragged all over that valley, McCormick and me, 'till we finally out-maneuvered them."

"Yeah," Frank smiled. He'd heard this story in detail from Mark over a couple of beers the previous summer; McCormick digging a pit while Hardcastle snapped twigs and tried to stay one step ahead of the murderous pair.

"And when we finally got 'em cornered, I swear Frank, I had this rock, this big rock, and I was going to bash their heads in."

Frank frowned; this was not part of the story Mark had told him. Finally he asked, "What happened?"

"He said 'no'." Hardcastle was studying his bandaged hand. "You know, I used to think I had a pretty good sense of right and wrong."

"You do, Milt," Frank assured him. "Just sometimes the threat is so great we don't have time to stand there and reason things out. You're no vigilante, I know that."

"But I think . . . no, I _know_ he puts a higher value on human life than I do."

"He shot Weed Randall."

"But that was to save Sandy. Hell, he doesn't even _like_ Sandy." The judge smiled sadly and shook his head in wonder. "But would he have done it to save himself?"

Frank said nothing.

"After Weed, he told me he wasn't a cop, couldn't be one. I think I should've listened to him. I can't let him . . . get himself killed because he won't shoot first."

Frank thought about this for a moment. "Milt, what happened tonight, you didn't go looking for that. Things just happen. If it'd been anybody but you, maybe homicide would be looking into the deaths of two more victims of senseless street crime. As for Mark, he took that guy down tonight, gave you a chance to get the drop on him. That's what he does. If you want more than that, he'd probably do it for you, but it'd change him. I kinda like the kid the way he is."

"Not as irascible as me, huh?" Hardcastle smiled. "Still, I wish--"

The door of the coffee room swung open, a nurse in scrubs looking for the judge. "Your friend is back."

Hardcastle was on his feet and halfway to the door, with Frank trailing behind. They encountered the doctor outside the curtained cubicle standing in front of an x-ray display box.

"Good news," he smiled. "No bleeding. No swelling. The damage is limited to a fracture, but that's not depressed. And the concussion, of course. That does, however, earn him a night in observation for neuro checks. We'll be getting him a room shortly."

"He's awake?" Hardcastle asked.

"He was a few minutes ago. He said . . . how did that go? If all we were going to feed him was Jello, he would walk home." The doctor smiled. "You can go see him now, then please let him get some rest." The judge nodded as he pushed aside the curtain, Frank right behind him.

The man on the gurney, pale except for the magenta bruising already apparent on his left temple, opened his eyes at the sound of their entry.

"Oh, good," he said slowly, "come to spring me?"

"Nope," the judge replied, "but it looks like you'll be doing short time. Out tomorrow, if you behave and eat your Jello in the morning."

McCormick made a face. Then he looked at Frank. "Tell me you got the creep who did this. I will be _so_ glad to testify."

Frank couldn't put together a lie quite fast enough. He saw McCormick's expression go to puzzled, then his eyes shift over to look up at the judge.

"Yeah, kiddo, I did."

McCormick knitted his brow as though he was trying to retrieve some memory. "There were . . . two of them, right?"

"Yeah," the judge replied, "there were."

McCormick fixed Hardcastle with a questioning stare but asked nothing. He finally nodded and closed his eyes.

Frank took Hardcastle by the elbow and pulled him gently out of the room. "Come on, Milt, let him get some sleep, you too. You'll both be better at this in the morning."

ooooo

It was nearly eleven the next day when Frank arrived back at the hospital to find McCormick already up, getting himself dressed with the slow, deliberate movements of someone who is none too sure of his balance.

"Already leaving?" He asked.

"Yeah, Hardcastle is bringing the car around. I'm signed out."

"I was hoping to get your statement this morning. Save you a trip to the station, or a visit from Wilkes."

McCormick winced at the mention of that name, and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed.

"Wouldn't take long," Frank prodded.

"No, probably not, all I really remember is I was looking over my shoulder, and when I turned around there were these two guys, from out of left field. One of 'em socked Hardcastle; I jumped the other guy. The next thing I knew there were lights and sirens, and I was puking my guts out in an ambulance."

"That's it?" Frank asked. Mark wasn't making eye contact. The effect was evasive.

"Pretty much." McCormick paused. He squinted down at the shoelace he was laboriously tying. Then he looked up again. "He shot both of them, didn't he?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"Not in so many words. I don't think I asked him straight out . . . Frank, I'm not sure, but I think I screwed up."

"_You_ screwed up?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had the drop on one of them. I remember having his gun. So how the hell did I wind up in here, and the judge had to shoot _both_ those guys? Or did _I_ shoot them and he's covering for me?"

Frank looked ceilingward in exasperation. "Enough with the morbid speculation. Two thugs jumped you in an alley. One of them tried to bash Milt's head in. One of them pointed a gun at you. You got the drop on him, then he got the drop on you. You don't like shooting people. I'd say that's a pretty good character trait most of the time. Milt's a little more pragmatic. That's okay, too. You both survived. End of story. See how easy it is to talk about these things?"

McCormick opened his mouth, then closed it again without saying a word. Frank heard the door open behind him, and Hardcastle saying, "You ready yet, kid? Oh, hi, Frank. Didn't know you were coming. I'm double-parked."

He had a wheelchair. McCormick protested half-heartedly. Frank brought up the rear, carrying the plastic bag with Mark's clothes from the night before. Then they were at the truck, with McCormick climbing in and the judge off to return the wheelchair to the lobby.

Mark fumbled with his seatbelt. "Thanks," he said, as Frank stowed the bag at his feet.

"Oh, I don't think you're gonna salvage much from that. Claudia says hydrogen peroxide works some of the time but--"

"No," McCormick interjected, "I mean _thanks_, for telling me everything. I'll talk to him, too."

Frank smiled and patted Mark on the knee. "You should. I think it'll help you both."

McCormick was looking out past him, towards the entrance to the hospital. "He seems okay."

"Yeah, well, talk to him anyway." Frank closed the door and stepped back as Hardcastle returned, holding his keys and looking eager to be off.

"You stopping by?"

"Maybe later," Frank said. "You need me to pick anything up for you?"

"Nah." Hardcastle crossed around to the driver's side and opened his door. "We'll be fine," he said as he climbed in.

_Yeah, I think you will be,_ Frank thought, as he watched the truck pull away.


End file.
